In the Monday March 4, 2011 article I mentioned that I recently did a time audit. Logging your activities and time spent is very enlightening.  I also mentioned that my week wasn’t the most productive one I ever had.

Beside the fact I was less than productive, The value of the audit process showed me where my energy was spent, diffused, and in some cases, non-existent.

My work habits were awesome… when I was actually working.

The problem? I wasn’t “working” the whole time.

Procrastination, laziness and fatigue were some factors I listed.

A couple of other points that contributed to my less than productive week were:

Checking email too frequently. My iphone doesn’t alert me when a new email arrives so I manually check it. Not a big deal. Except when I’m not into my work… It’s too easy to tap the mail icon and just take a quick peek. The urge to respond becomes too much to ignore.

Unnecessary phone calls. Guilty. I made too many of them simply due to procrastination.

Idle chit-chat. We don’t have a water cooler but that didn’t stop me from spending extra minutes chatting when I should have been slaving away in the salt mine.

Overall, out of a possible 50 hours of “work time” I had only 27 hours of billable time. Not good from a personal efficiency perspective.

The following week I changed my dietary routine to include more protein and cut the carbohydrate intake. That one change alone made a huge difference in my energy level. The mid-afternoon fatigue was gone.

The diet change made a notable difference: My outlook about being productive. Previously I had felt drained before starting the week, the job, the routine, etc.

After a week of eating differently, I had a more buoyant attitude. I felt more positive and happier. Maybe it won’t work for you but it’s worth a try. It certainly worked for me.

In upcoming posts I’ll show you some other tips I used to combat some of my inefficiencies spotted in the “unproductive week”.